
Mona Moore: Apple has released a thriller about the parents of drug addicts

The frightening, dark, lingering thriller "Echo of the Valley" focuses on a theme that doesn't often appear on the big screen. What should a single, loving mother do if her beloved daughter is a drug addict surrounded by scum, marginals and dealers? How to communicate, what to say, what boundaries to set, what sacrifices to make for her daughter — Julianne Moore, one of the greatest actresses of her generation, answers all these questions not only with talent, but also believably to the point of goosebumps during watching and nightmares after it. Izvestia watched the latest Apple hit and recommends it to all parents, because it's better for children to take care of their psyche.
Julianne Moore plays a Depressed Mother
This is only the third film in Michael Pierce's career, although the director is already 44 years old and can be considered a mature artist. In 2017, his debut "The Beast" with Jesse Buckley and Johnny Flynn was not only named by many critics as one of the best films of the year, but also fit well into the new wave of horror films, which seem to be not quite horror, because they move away from the pure genre towards political satire, ethnography, arthouse drama. The last path is the closest to Pierce, he loves a hand-held camera, close-ups of silent people, characters that do not fully reveal themselves, which are characteristic of documentary paintings of long-term observation.
So it is here, in the "Echo of the Valley", the new Apple TV +, which is released on streaming on June 13. Pierce came up with an unexpected and very relevant story, selected great actors for it, and Ridley Scott, a symbol of intellectual thrillers with cult status, became one of the producers.
The young drug addict here is wonderfully and expressively played by Sidney Sweeney from Euphoria and White Lotus, but this is not a story about children, but about parents. In the center of the story is the girl's mother, a single woman named Kate. She is played by Julianne Moore, the Oscar winner, the winner of all three major film festivals in the world, the muse of Todd Haynes and simply one of the most influential actresses of her generation.
Kate lives alone on a huge ranch in Pennsylvania, where she teaches horse riding to students. Or rather, she taught: Kate has severe depression, she has long abandoned her lessons, she doesn't even have money to repair a crack in the roof — she has to ask her ex-husband, who is played by Kyle McLachlan in the spirit of Lynch paintings. There was nothing and no one left in the world to distract Kate from silently contemplating the ceiling above her bed and listening to old messages from a long-dead friend.
Just Claire's daughter. Kate doesn't just love her, Claire is her light, her joy, her life. And her unhealed wound, because the talented young writer Claire dropped out of school, fell in love with a drug addict and is associated with very dangerous people. The girl usually comes to her mother dirty, crying, in torn clothes, having lost her new mobile phone and with bruises all over her body. And he asks for money. Her mother gives her everything, but you can't get enough of Claire and her friends, it's already getting to beatings, torture, and blackmail. And one quiet night, Claire brings a corpse in the car: help me out, Mommy, it seems like my business is really bad. And mom, of course, helps out to get into a trap from which there is no escape.
A film about drug addicts and a film about parents
"Just think, I see it every day on daytime TV shows and hear it on talk shows," a potential viewer of the film will say. Indeed, there are few such plots in low-grade programs, while big movies usually diligently avoid them. Perhaps he does not know what to do with this conflict, how to solve it. So that there are no clairvoyant grandmothers or valiant policemen here, but to make films about how simply everything collapses for both parents and children — well, it happens, but such films are rarely shown outside of festival competitions.
Director Michael Pierce found another twist — he focused on the confrontation between mystery and horror. The mystery is embodied by Kate. We really never know what's going on inside her. What does she think about when she smiles, how much does she realize that all the money given to Claire is only going to harm what she plans to do with her life. Kate constantly commits absurd acts before our eyes, the most idiotic of which are her run—ins with a drug dealer (Domhnall Gleeson plays absolute evil, his character is a kind of analogue of Bob from Twin Peaks), who demands unimaginable money for her daughter's life. Every time we grab our heads, what is she doing, stupid, how can you be so naive? And we're angry at her, and we feel sorry for her, and we're thinking how to help her, because Julianne Moore doesn't just make her character alive: her Kate is our relative, neighbor, maybe she's us. Together with her, we look into the tear—stained eyes of the girl Claire, who feels so bad, and understand that, yes, of course, we must give everything to this sparrow, if only she would feel good.
So through acting and, secondly, through a dizzying plot, the film becomes not a gloomy entertainment for one evening, but an embodied concern for ourselves, because we learn too much here, there is too much of our lives, our children. It doesn't matter that they may not be drug addicts, but very successful young people, but this haunted look, this plea of Kolenka Rostov from "War and Peace" or, even further, the prodigal son from the Gospel — who hasn't seen them? And who has not given the child, with pain in his soul, something that would definitely not benefit, but it is impossible not to give it away? Who didn't cruelly pay for it later, although there's no one else to blame but themselves.
Director Michael Pierce, of course, knew perfectly well which strings he would strike. But in his case, unlike the daytime broadcast content, this is not speculation, but art, and the actors of Echo Valley will definitely receive well-deserved awards for embodying you and me and becoming an impartial mirror that reflects not Pennsylvania at all, but something much closer.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»